I have reda posts before about Maryland. Looking to go in April during Spring Break from school. I was thinking Big Hunting Creek and Owens Creek. Any suggestions or other ideas on other waters and places to stay or camp would be greatly appreciated.

In western Maryland, you have the North Branch of the Potomac River, a tailwater with 4 species of trout, the usual suspects plus cutthroats, or the Savage River, also a tailwater, managed for wild trout only from just below the outflow for a couple miles. The park near the reservoir on the Savage has camping available, I think for free. You may need a permit. Both waters are with 30 minutes of one another. I prefer the Savage. There should be hatches in April. Some of the wild Browns and Brookies get pretty big.

Posted on: 2006/12/17 13:20

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Mike, Big Hunting Creek and Owens Creek are quite nice. The waters in western MD that Jack describes would give you broader fishing opportunities on bigger water, for bigger fish, and probably fewer fishermen. Nevertheless they're quite some distance away from Frederick County where Big Hunting Creek(BHC) is. There are camping opportunities at Cunningham Falls State Park and some camping at Catoctin Mountain National Park. BHC forms the border between these parks and Owens Creek runs along the upper border of Catoctin. There are quite a few wild brookie streams in the borders of these parks as well. BHC and Owens are small freestone streams. Both are stocked. They both have some wild fish. BHC has a good population of beautiful wild browns, and brookies in the headwaters, mostly above the falls. Both waters do however attract a lot of fishermen in the spring and the small scale of these streams make them susceptible to overfishing in my opinion. Owens Creek has a regulation that is unusual to PA fishermen. We're used to delayed harvest - conversely Owens is managed put and take in the spring and c&r in the summer. If you're there in April there will likely be a lot of bait fishing pressure on Owens. BHC has a long fly fishing only C&R section and it sees a good bit of hatch activity if you're a dry fly guy. BHC used to have a reputation for having large numbers of large stocked rainbows that were fairly easy to catch but the numbers of fish stocked these days is much lower and the browns are challenging - it's not a "numbers" creek anymore. Good luck!

If you are willing to go a little further than Maryland, you could try Shennendoah national forest in Virginia. I used to live in Washington DC and make the drive, which was only about an hour and 15 minutes away to some great fishing.

Shenendoah allows camping in certain areas and there are TONS of small streams and larger rivers in the park to fish in. You can buy a trout stamp and license online. The times that I fished there I simply took a day pack and my gear and walked in a mile or so to fish some of the small streams. Those little streams were loaded with native brookies and some had some great size (one I caught was 10").

The drive to Shenendoah isn't that much further than the drive to MD. Just a thought.

Western Maryland has some really nice creeks....I spent 3 years going to college in Garrett County.........Casselman River is nice with special regs....youghiogheny is awesome and offers a variety of fishing........SWALLOW FALLS area of the YOUGH is just gorgeous...located near the town of OAKLAND...... downstream there is a special reg area that receives water from Marylands Largest lake, Deep Creek Lake.....then there is the West Branch of Potomac River.......this river has some of the meanest and largest brown trout on the east coast.......I KID YOU NOT........it is split into two sections....above Jennings Randolph (?)Reservoir and below........Savage River (dumps into W. Br. Pot) is a great wild trout stream.....very slippery and the fish are somewhat educated......an occasional wild tiger trout may be caught out of the Savage.........there are a bunch of smaller wild trout streams, but you will need a map and some good hiking boots to find them.................Western Maryland is simply gorgeous......I have caught plenty of fish over 20 inches in my three years in Garrett County Maryland.........hope this helps............one more tiny creek in the area that is just inside the PA border, BEAR CREEK.......

Nope.........but the browns are just as big as my nice COHO.........actually this was the first coho I ever caught in New York, Salmon River........while walking the W. Br. of Potomac one day........I saw roughly 18 or so dead brown trout........spawn stress...now mind you..........these fish did not look like trout......they were all mid 20 inches and up........and the meanest looking fish I have ever seen..........still can't beat PA fishing.......too many options...........

I had an Icthylolgy Prof at Penn State. I can not remember his name. He was a short sawed off SOB. Any how he used to work for Maryland fish and game, or what ever they were called. He was in charge of trying to get a fishable population of Salmon up and runing in Deep Creek Lake. He said it never took off, but your picture got me excited for a moment.

A few years ago, i was able to Fish Big Hunting Creek 4 nights a week. It is a beautiful stream. The brook trout fishing was outstanding and it had some very large fish. I generally used a 3 weight and a 12 ft. leader. The fish are very spooky an even when approaching the stream you had to be very careful as you could spook the fish 20 feet from the stream.

In most cases I would fish up stream with as long a cast as possible using the stream for my backcast. Fishing was not easy as I only averaged 3 fish a night over the period of several years.

I have not been to the stream to fish, but the last time I stopped to eat lunch by the stream I could see some large brook trout.

When I was in college, which was late 90's, the creek was primarily stocked........the creek is roughly 20-40 feet across.......maybe larger in some parts, smaller in other areas........it has been awhile since I have seen the creek.....if you have a cabin in that area, fishing other mentioned streams of Garrett County should be to your liking....lots of bugs, lots of hatches.....lots of fish.......